Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

reclaimthenet.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 577 posts

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#351

Post by archgoon »

carapace wrote: post #330
heinrichhartman wrote: post #211

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies: If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce. If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They hav…

Nationalize FAANG?

I don't see how putting Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon under the control of the US executive branch would solve the problems of accountability and them needing to deal with the laws of multiple nation states.

If one wants to subject these corporations to regulations, than it seems one should propose regulations. Putting them under the direct purview of a government does not magically make them start working in the best interest of the people (of which nation?). Nor does it mean that they are automatically accountable; see for example the NSA if you want examples predating the current administration.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#352

Post by scarface74 »

ravenstine wrote: post #348
scarface74 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think we all got together and sung Kum Bah Yah after the Civil War? Are you forgetting about the segregation? The Civil Rights Movement? Vietnam?

Are you arguing that there haven't been varying levels of unity and partisanship within American history?

As long as you ignore minorities and/or non-straight people.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#353

Post by falcolas »

scarface74 wrote: post #301
falcolas wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that same token, are you paying attention to the actions being taken by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon? There are no clean actors here, but the difference between the judicial system and the big companies is that the judicial system has people who care about more than just profits.

It’s even worse. They care about their own ideologies that are often at odds with mine. The difference is that it is much easier to not be beholden to the private corporations you mentioned than the government. Private corporations don’t have the power of the state to take away my liberty, property or life.

You do realize the context of this conversation, correct? We're not talking about your liberty, property, or life. We're talking about apps on a smartphone or tablet.

> Private corporations don’t have the power [] to take away my liberty, property or life.

No, they can only demand you come in for overtime, require you to move where they want you to, or force you to come in while sick, at the risk of taking away your job. A risk which is minor for some of us, but which is the equivalent of a threat of homelessness for others.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#354

Post by kyteland »

crottypeter wrote: post #151
pxtail wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to watch something one-off, some interesting tidbit outside of your curated feed then doing it in incognito mode is required, otherwise, as you noted you are doomed.

If you find it here and delete it, I think it will cease to influence your recommended videos. https://www.youtube.com/feed/history

I have YouTube history turned off along with other publicly visible tracking and this kind of nonsense still happens to me. Their algo is working on more data than just what they make visible to the user.

"The only winning move is not to play."

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#355

Post by ravenstine »

weiming wrote: post #69
kleiba wrote: post #65

I've never lived in China but this immediately sounds like my (naive) idea of what it must be like: you're only allowed to consume what the government has approved. I think this is setting a dangerous precedence.

Except in this case it's not the government, but private corporations taking some kind of political stance. Google in particular has been very "active," not to forget also: https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-will-ban-anything-ag... ("video that 'goes against' WHO guidance on the pandemic will be blocked")

What is a government but a "corporation" that owns land and takes a political stance? I find Google to be virtually indistinguishable from government besides that it doesn't have a constitution. Even worse is that they have contracts with the US and various governments, making them a political toady.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#356

Post by _2d30 »

heinrichhartman wrote: post #211

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies: If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce. If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They hav…

Why not just free distribution and then enforce takedowns if something is deemed illegal after the fact? There’s no need for “users being in charge” or nationalization. These two parts especially don’t even seem at all necessary to your stated goals in terms of applied regulation. They would also be disastrous.

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#357

Post by goda90 »

rjmunro wrote: post #349
JeremyNT wrote: post #345

If you are an end user who would like to avoid getting caught in this situation, you might want to switch to using F-Droid [0] as your primary source of Android software. The selection is more limited, but because everything is open source and distributed outside of Google's walled garden, you can be sure that it won't be arbitrarily removed because of the whims of corporate bureaucracy. I write this not as a dogmati…

How does f-droid police "shovelware and spyware"? Or just outright malware? Surely they will remove it? In which case your favourite app might be "arbitrarily removed"?

They try to scan for them, and have reporting options. Its open source apps only, so first, if its removed, then arguments can be made using the full source code as evidence one way or another. And you can always grab the code for your favorite app and build it yourself.

https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Anti-Features/

Re: Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

#358

Post by cxr »

rjmunro wrote: post #349
JeremyNT wrote: post #345

If you are an end user who would like to avoid getting caught in this situation, you might want to switch to using F-Droid [0] as your primary source of Android software. The selection is more limited, but because everything is open source and distributed outside of Google's walled garden, you can be sure that it won't be arbitrarily removed because of the whims of corporate bureaucracy. I write this not as a dogmati…

How does f-droid police "shovelware and spyware"? Or just outright malware? Surely they will remove it? In which case your favourite app might be "arbitrarily removed"?

F-Droid only carries FOSS. Technically, that wouldn't prohibit a malware vendor from getting their app into the catalog, but like the processes for package repositories for desktop distros, there's a lot of cultural, social, and procedural baggage associated with being the kind of project that gets distributed through those channels. Who's going to go through the effort? The whole point of shovelware is that it's a low-effort process.
Post reply on HN